


You Are Invited

by PotterheadAvengerDemigod



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Homophobic Language, Insults, M/M, School Reunion, Slurs, and Jack got an amazing husband, and an amazing husband, but not really serious because Bitty's got good friends, not that the insults arent serious, ok i meant that the impact of the slurs arent that serious, who has good friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 02:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9051421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotterheadAvengerDemigod/pseuds/PotterheadAvengerDemigod
Summary: reunionnoun1. a social event for a group of people who have not seen each other for a long time:2. a situation when people meet again after they have not seen each other for a long time:





	

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone! Even if you don't celebrate it I hope you have/had/are having (depending on your time zone) a good day! (Even though this isn't even a Christmas fic...)
> 
> (Note: I just went in and edited some things! The linebreaks weren't there, for some reason, so I just added them in again! Sorry to those who read this and were confused by the sudden changes in scene where there were supposed to be linebreaks!)

It’d taken Bitty a long time to come out to his parents, and even longer to gather the courage to openly act like a couple every time he and Jack came down to Georgia.

It’d been two years since Jack had come out to the NHL in the form of proposing to Bitty on the ice _with the Stanley Cup,_ but it’d been a good two years and with the amount of good press that Jack had been getting as Captain of the Falcs and two-time Stanley Cup winner before he came out, the backlash hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected, especially since Kent had come out barely a day after as well.

So yeah. Bitty’s been married to Jack Zimmermann for two years now, and said husband is now a four-time Stanley Cup winner with an Art Ross, a Hart, a Richard and a Conn Smythe under his belt. In fact, Jack’s gotten almost every award possible, including the Calder in his rookie year and the Lindsay in his third, the year he became Captain, not to mention the countless others in between. And Bitty himself isn’t that badly off either.

He’s now the owner of a chain of successful bakeries that’s been spreading across the States, as well as the author of several best-selling cookbooks. He’s a Youtube star and a common guest star on cooking shows. He earns almost as much as Jack does, and he’s famous enough that even the conservative old women in Madison have ignored his being gay in favour of complimenting his cooking (“Good on him, teaching those Yanks _real_ food!”).

So when the invitation to his ten-year high school reunion comes in the mail, Bitty actually seriously considers going.

He’s heard enough from both Coach and Mama to know that not all his classmates have done well for themselves, like Danny, Coach’s star quarterback in Bitty’s graduating class. He’d always gone on and on about how he was going pro after high school, that the NFL had was definitely going to send scouts after him, but the day had never come.

Sure, Danny was good, but he just wasn’t NFL good.

Also, he was kind of an ass.

Danny had been one of Bitty’s worst aggressors in high school, and while it went against Bitty’s Southern upbringing, he couldn’t help but feel vindicated when he found out how much better his life had gone compared to Danny’s.

Bitty sinks into the marshmallow of a sofa that he’d insisted on when he’d gone furniture shopping with Jack, no matter how much the other man had jokingly protested about how little back support the sofa provided, and contemplates his choices.

Bitty’s schedule is pretty clear for the time being, and Jack’s in the middle of off-season now, so Bitty knows both of them can afford the time to fly down to Madison and go to Bitty’s high school reunion. Besides, Mama _has_ been asking him to come down and visit her and Coach.

Jack drops down into the seat beside Bitty, startling the baker out of his thoughts as he wraps an arm around Bitty’s shoulders and pulls him to his side.

“Penny for your thoughts, bé?” Jack asks, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of Bitty’s head.

Bitty hands him the cream-coloured invite wordlessly, tilting his head up to kiss Jack before leaning into his warmth.

Jack takes the card and scans it.

“Madison Ridge High, Class of 2012,” Jack reads. ““You are invited to our 10 year reunion! Come mingle with old friends and catch up! We hope to see you there!” So, are you planning on going, Bits?”

Bitty shrugs. “I’m not sure, honestly. The guys there were never very nice to me, and the only people I really liked were the ones on my hockey team, even though I wasn’t particularly close to a lot of them.”

“But,” Jack hums, hearing the unsaid word hovering at the tip of Bitty’s tongue.

Bitty smiles and leans further into Jack’s side. “But I also kind of want them to see how well I did for myself. Prove them wrong, y’know? Everyone always said I was gonna end up a failure in life, and according to Mama, I’m a heck a lot better off than a big chunk of them now.”

Jack nods in understanding. He’d gone through exactly what Bitty’s describing, the first time he’d hoisted the Stanley Cup, the time he’d held the Calder in his hands and pretended that his watery eyes were because of the lights and cameras flashing. The first time he’d proven all the media wrong, when he’d shown them that he was more than just Jack Zimmermann, failed hockey legacy. When he’d showed the world that he was Jack Zimmermann, star NHL player and his own man.

“It’s just, my life’s ‘swawesome now. I’ve got my dream job, a beautiful home, an amazing, kind, caring, gorgeous husband,” Bitty continues, smiling up at Jack, eyes bright with love, and Jack can feel his heart swell, because no matter how many times Bitty says it, there are days when he still can’t believe that this incredible man chose him.

“I’d happy to go with you,” Jack replies, smirking. “You can show me off. I mean, I _am_ your trophy husband.”

Bitty feigns horror in the arch of his eyebrows and widened eyes. “Jack Zimmermann, I’ll have you know that you make more money than me! If anyone’s the trophy husband in this relationship, it’s me!”

Jack pouts. “Am I not beautiful enough to be your trophy husband, Bits?”

And Bitty laughs, burying his head in Jack’s chest and shaking with laughter. When they’d first started dating, Bitty had known that Jack wasn’t always comfortable in his body and the fact that he could now make jokes like these made something light and bubbly grow in Bitty’s chest.

“Oh, honey,” Bitty sighs. “I love you so much.”

Jack presses a soft kiss to Bitty’s forehead.

“Love you more,” he chuckles as Bitty’s nose scrunches up at the sentence. “I assume you’re planning on going, then?”

Bitty shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt, I guess. I mean, I got over the bullying a long time ago.”

“I’ll book the flight,” Jack says, grinning. “You get your baking stuff.”

Bitty stares at Jack for a moment, then bursts into laughter. “Well, Mama will _definitely_ want to bake.”

Jack reels Bitty in for a quick kiss that ends up not that quick, both of them still laughing as Bitty falls back into the sofa, pulling Jack down with him.

* * *

 

When the two land in Hartsfield-Jackson, it takes more time than they expected to get out to where Bitty’s parents are waiting for them, seeing as both of them were attracting a couple of their own fans, and Bitty’s attracting enough attention that even with all the media he deals with nowadays, he still flushes as fans crowd him, leaving Jack standing off to the side, waiting patiently after the few fans that had come up to him have gotten their fill of pictures and autographs and left.

Jack smiles at Bitty’s adorable, surprised expression, the sheer number of fans around him bringing out a genuine, happy smile, and Jack knows Bitty isn’t used to such numbers, but his baker is social enough that they don’t faze him like they do Jack at times.

Back home in Providence, Bitty is relatively famous, enough to have a decent number of people asking for selfies and autographs on the street, but Jack was always the more popular one there, being the star player and captain of one of the only professional sports team Providence had.

But here, here in Georgia, in Bitty’s hometown, where most people are foodies or simply just proud that their state produced a celebrity, Bitty is undeniably the more famous of the two.

And Jack doesn’t mind at all.

By the time Bitty satisfies all his fans’ wants and queries, it’s been almost twenty minutes and Jack has picked up all their bags from the carousel.

Bitty grabs one of their luggages by the handle while Jack gets the other one, and they make their way over to the nearby Starbucks where Mama Bittle and Coach are waiting, Bitty immediately being pulled into a hug and being gushed over, Jack bending down to receive the hug that he knows is coming the moment Suzanne releases Bitty. Coach wraps an arm around Bitty’s shoulders and pulls him into a quick, semi-awkward one-armed hug, mumbling a quick, “Been a long time, Junior. Glad you could make it,” before shaking Jack’s proffered hand and nodding.

The family heads out to the old Bittle family truck in the airport parking lot and Bitty grins fondly as he runs a hand along the chipped blue paint with messy little yellow swirls painted along the bottom of the truck, a lasting reminder of how the truck is almost as old as Bitty himself is, the yellow swirls painted on by Bitty that one year when he was seven and Mama had decided that he needed to have some bonding time with Coach.

Jack smiles lovingly at Bitty as he hoists their luggage into the back and helps Bitty into the cab although the other man doesn’t actually need his help.

The hour long drive to Madison is interspersed by chatter from Bitty and Suzanne, Jack wrapping a casual arm around Bitty’s shoulders and tilting Bitty’s head up for a quick, chaste kiss when Suzanne teases him and makes him pout adorably.

“Y’all are goin’ to Junior’s high school reunion tomorrow, right?” Coach asks abruptly, and both Jack and Bitty reply in the positive.

“Might wanna keep this one away from Leah Dennis, the woman’s still single and been tryin’ to poach rich men,” Coach grunts, jabbing a thumb in Jack’s direction.

Bitty nods at the same time that Jack asks, “Who-”

“Leah Dennis,” Bitty answers, eyebrows pulling together. “She was queen bee of my high school. Popular, rich, pretty. Everyone loved her. But she was always horrible to me -little Dicky Bittle, doing things boys shouldn't be doing, she said. The only person I hated more than her was Danny Jones. He was Coach’s star quarterback, and he was good, admittedly, but he always bullied me. Never as bad as the time those kids locked me in the utility closet overnight, but sometimes he’d shove me up against the lockers and call me names, or “accidentally” push me to the floor when he walked past. He never really got violent, although there was that one time that he tried to punch me when I was waitin’ for Coach after a game.”

Coach grunts, and mumbles an apology for not realising what his star player had been doing to his kid.

Bitty leans back into Jack’s embrace and shakes his head. “It’s alright, Coach. Wasn’t your fault.”

But while Bitty’s made his peace with the bullies and has long gotten over it, this is the first time Jack’s heard Bitty go into detail about his high school life. And, _bon Dieu_ , Jack has never wanted to beat up someone as much as he does Danny Jones.

“Jack, honey?” Bitty asks, feeling the sudden tension in Jack’s muscles, turning what his previously firm but comfortable backrest into rock. “Promise me you won’t go pickin’ a fight with my bullies, will you?”

Jack grumbles an affirmative under his breath, unhappy but understanding.

In the front seat, Suzanne stifles a laugh while Coach chuckles under his breath.

“Right,” Suzanne starts abruptly as the truck grinds to a halt. “Home sweet home, boys!”

Bitty grins as he hops out of the truck and grabs their luggage off the back. “I’ve missed this place.”

Jack follows him at a more sedate pace and scowls the moment he sets foot outside the truck’s air-conditioned interior.

“I haven’t missed the heat,” he mutters, and Bitty giggles.

“Sun’s goin’ down soon,” Suzanne says, smiling. “It’ll get cooler.”

Jack and Bitty grab their luggage and make their way into the house, bringing the bags with them up the stairs to Bitty’s childhood room after Suzanne gestures them up the stairs.

“Now, y’all go on and freshen up, I’m just goin’ to get dinner started.”

“You sure you don’t need help with dinner, Mama?” Bitty asks, and Suzanne shoos him away from the kitchen with a laugh, accepting the hug and kiss on the cheek from Bitty before she pushes him gently towards the stairs.

“Alright, alright, I’m goin’!” Bitty laughs, grabbing his bag in one hand and tugging Jack along behind him with the other. Jack smiles dopily at Bitty -no matter how many years passed, seeing Bitty happy was always going to be the highlight of his day.

* * *

The next afternoon sees Bitty pacing back and forth as he contemplates whether or not he should really turn up for the reunion. He paces the length of his childhood bedroom as Jack leans back on his elbows, lying on the bed and tracking the movement of his husband with his eyes.

“I mean,” Bitty mumbles, running his fingers through his hair. “It’s not like I miss them. And they probably -definitely- don’t miss me. But then again, I do kind of want to at least show up. And I wouldn’t mind catching up with my high school hockey friends…”

Jack gets to his feet and wraps his arms around Bitty, resting his chin on his shoulder and nuzzling at his neck. “It’s fine if you don’t want to go, Bits. You could always just call the organising committee and tell them that you can’t make it. But if you decide that you do want to go, I’m gonna be there with you every step of the way, you hear me? Together.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Bitty sighs, smiling as he stops his pacing and turns into Jack’s open arms instead, unable to stop himself from going up on his tiptoes to kiss Jack.

When Bitty finally pulls back from the kiss, his expression is determined. “Let’s go for it.”

“There you go, #15,” Jack mumbles, grinning, and Bitty lets out a startled laugh, hitting Jack across the chest for the cheek. Jack just laughs.

* * *

"Tie or no tie?” Jack asks as he drapes his suit jacket across his arm. It’s already hot enough in his dress shirt -he isn’t wearing the jacket at least until he gets to somewhere cooler.

Bitty looks up from where he’s adjusting his shirt cuffs, sucking in his bottom lip in consideration. Jack looked _amazing_ whether or not he wore a tie, but if he wore one it might get too stuffy for his poor Canadian husband. Also, Bitty wouldn’t get to admire the sharp angles of his collarbones peeking out from the open collar of his dress shirt.

But Bitty himself was wearing a bow tie, and a part of him wanted them to match, somewhat.

 _But collarbones,_ a tiny voice in the back of his mind protested, and Bitty gave in.

“No tie, sugar,” Bitty advised, and Jack tucked his blue tie back into his suitcase.

“Ready to go, then?” Jack asks as Bitty tugs his bow tie in place, and Bitty nods, loops an arm through Jack’s and marches out the front door.

They get into the car -a classic, slightly old but elegant Volkswagen- and start off towards the reunion.

When they get there, Bitty’s greeted at the door by a peppy, cheerful girl in a green cocktail dress and blonde hair.

“Welcome to Madison Ridge High’s Class of 2012 10-year reunion!”

“Um,” Bitty starts, staring at the girl. “You’re Penny Williams, right? School newspaper’s editor back in our year?”

The blonde girl looks up. “I am! And you are? Sorry, you look familiar, but it’s been so long.”

Bitty laughs, a tad awkwardly, and says, rubbing at the back of his neck, “Eric Bittle.”

“Oh!” The girl exclaims. “The baker! Coach Bittle’s son, right?”

Bitty nods, and Penny turns to Jack. “And you are?”

“Uh,” Jack starts, and Bitty cuts in, wrapping an arm around Jack’s waist. “This is Jack. He’s my husband.”

Penny visibly starts, her eyes wide, and her hand flies up to cover her mouth. “Your husband! Um. Uh, okay, then, go on in.”

Bitty’s smiles brittles slightly at the shock, but at least it’s not open disapproval, and then the two of them head into the hall where the reunion’s taking place.

“She seemed…” Jack starts, glancing back at the door. “...okay.”

The corner of Bitty’s lip quirked up. “Yeah, Penny was the school newspaper’s editor back in my year. She was a nice kid, I guess, but I never really talked to her save that one time I accidentally knocked into her in the hallway. I don’t think she really knew who I was, but at least she was never downright hostile or anything.”

“Well,” a smug voice calls from somewhere to their left. “If it isn’t little Dicky Bittle. If there’s one face I never thought I’d have to see again.”

“Danny, hi,” Bitty grits out, polite smile plastered on his face.

Beside Bitty, Jack tenses noticeably.

“Nice to meet you,” Jack says, shoulders tense, but his media smile on. He offers a hand and Danny takes it, shaking briefly before letting go and subtly shaking it out (If anyone asked, Jack forgot his own strength). “I’m Jack, Eric’s husband.”

Danny grins then, a sharp, predatory grin. “Bittle’s got a _husband_. What’d I always say, huh? This one’s a queer. Goin’ straight to hell. Betcha he’s dirt-poor too. Probably came today for the food, huh?”

Jack clenches his fists, breath quickening with anger, and Bitty has to gently pry his hand open and lace their fingers together before Jack’s breathing calms slightly.

Just then a gasp comes from off to Bitty’s side, and then there’s a muffled squeal of excitement.

“Is that-” an excited voice asks, and another one answers with a, “Yeah! Yeah I think it is!”

A man in a button down and a woman in a shin-length, off-the-shoulder cream dress suddenly appear in front of Bitty.

“Are you-” the woman asks, only to be cut off by the man’s excited, “Eric Bittle!”

Bitty laughs, pushing the encounter with Danny to the back of his mind and ignoring that the man himself is still standing but five feet away. “I am.”

“Oh gosh, I never knew my Caleb went to school with Eric Bittle!” The woman gushes, before flushing. “Oh, excuse my manners, I’m Jennifer Hawes, Caleb Hawes’s wife? Maybe you knew him?”

Bitty frowns, cocking his head to the side. “Well, he sounds familiar, but I can’t say I knew him very well, if at all, I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” the man says then. “I’m Sam, Penny outside’s my wife! She never mentioned she went to school with you, though. I’ve followed your vlog since _forever_ , and I’ve got all your cookbooks -oh man, if I’d known you’d be here I’d have brought mine for you to sign!”

Jennifer gasps then, expression dismayed. “Oh, I don’t have my copies with me either! What a shame!”

Bitty smiles. “Y’all live here in Madison, right?”

At their nods, Bitty’s smiles widens. “That’s fine then. Y’all mind givin’ me your addresses? I’ll mail over a couple of signed copies of my latest cookbook once I can get them.”

The two gasp, and then they’re spewing thanks profusely, despite Bitty constantly telling them that it’s really he who should be thankful to them for following and supporting him.

“Y’all want a selfie?” Bitty asks then, still grinning, and takes their offered phones, snapping a quick picture.

“What was _that_ all about?” Danny asks once Jennifer and Sam have left, voice derisive.

“Oh, that?” Bitty asks, turning back to Danny and trying to keep his smile on. “It’s always nice to meet my fans! It’s good to know that people like me, right? I mean, managin’ my restaurants and ensurin’ that my customers have the best food they can just isn’t the same as meetin’ them face to face, y’know?”

Danny’s jaw drops, and his entire face is a mask of shock before he visibly gathers himself and storms off in the opposite direction.

Jack wraps an arm around Bitty’s shoulders as they both watch Danny leave, and then Jack’s pressing a soft kiss to the crown of Bitty’s head and giggling under his breath. “That was priceless, Bits. I love you _so_ much, have I ever mentioned how much I love you, mon cher?”

“Multiple times, Monsieur Zimmermann,” Bitty answers, and then he’s giggling along with Jack too, both of them leaning against each other.

“Would you mind gettin’ us some drinks, sweetheart?” Bitty asks once their giggle fit dies down, and Jack nods, ducking down for a quick kiss before heading off towards the drinks table (not the bar, Jack knows that Bitty isn’t in the mood for alcohol tonight, and Jack himself never really wanted alcohol anyway).

Jack’s at the table getting two cups of punch (and making sure it isn’t spiked before he fills the cups) when a woman in a sheer white dress that barely reaches down to mid-thigh and a shockingly low neckline sidles up to him.

“Hey, handsome,” she purrs, and Jack’s been at the receiving end of enough puck bunnies and the like to know when someone’s trying to seduce him.

“Not interested,” he mutters, turning away and focusing on ladling the punch into cups.

“You sure about that, darlin’?” The woman continues, voice sickeningly sweet, and Jack shudders. Only Bits is allowed to call him that.

“I’m taken,” Jack says instead, lifting his hand to show her the ring around his fourth finger, and his face is a polite mask of indifference, but his shoulders are tense and his knuckles are white.

“Oh, I’m sure I can convince you… Handsome man like you, surely the missus doesn’t live up to expectations?”

Jack’s brow furrows, and he scowls. There’s a small voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Shitty, screaming about the horrors of heteronormativity and making assumptions and how you should never give in to the patriarchy.

Jack ignores the voice, even though it makes him smile inwardly. He turns his back to the woman and grits his teeth as he feels her hand on his shoulder, caressing and stroking his bicep. Jack shakes her off and grabs his two cups, walking away from the table with his shoulders squared, leaving the woman standing there with her hand over her heart and eyes wide with shock. He apologises silently to Maman for being so extremely rude, but he couldn’t take it any longer. If he’d listened to the woman prattle on for even a second more, he’d have done something highly regrettable, and probably something that would have gotten his face plastered all over the tabloids and magazines that had been hounding him for some scandal.

He makes his way back to where Bits is seated at a table, talking animatedly to a brunette girl in a white dress with leggings and a deep pink denim jacket, and leans down to peck Bitty on the cheek as he places the cups down.

“Oh,” Bitty says as he pulls Jack down to sit next to him. “Callie, this is my husband Jack. Jack, this is Callie. She was my A back in my high school team.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jack says, holding out a hand. Callie looks up, smiling, and moves to take his hand before she abruptly freezes, eyes widening and jaw dropping.

“You’re-” she stutters. “You’re-”

She breaks off, and she’s making a worryingly breathless wheezing noise while gesturing back and forth between Jack and Bitty.

When Callie finally gets her wits back about her, her volume control leaves a lot to be desired, and her shout echoes through the room.

“Oh my God, you’re Jack Zimmermann!”

Heads turn toward their table and then the three of them are the object of almost the entire room’s attention. Whispers start building up, and even though most people in the hall don’t exactly follow hockey, Bitty knows that there are some who do. Besides, with Callie’s outburst, even those who didn’t know who Jack was now knew that he was someone who should be known.

Murmurs of “Jack Zimmermann?” “The hockey player?” “Captain of the Falconers?” start buzzing through the crowd, and any other day the recognition and sheer attention would send Jack straight into media mode, but today he’s here as Eric Bittle’s husband, not as Jack Zimmermann, Captain of the Falcs and four-time Stanley Cup winner. Besides, Bits _did_ mention the subtle desire to show his bullies how much better off he was compared to them, and Jack is more than happy to help.

At a table across the room, Danny Jones stands, a sneer plastered across his face and his lips pulled into an unsightly grimace.

“John Zachman?” He starts, snorting derisively. “Never heard of you. What, you some bigshot up there in the North? Please, as if a queer like you could ever make it anywhere in life.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from a good portion of the room, and that’s how Bitty can tell how much of his high school cohort actually follow hockey.

But Bitty can take Danny insulting him, can take Danny calling him names and treating him like the dirt on the sole of his shoe, but he’s not going to stand by and watch as Danny insults his husband, his beautiful, kind, loving Jack. Bitty moves to stand up, but Callie’s firm hand on his shoulder pushes him back down into his seat as she stands instead, stance steady and expression fierce.

“First off, Jones,” she starts, voice sharp. “His name is _Jack Zimmermann_ . Second, he _is_ a bigshot up in the North. Down here too, actually, if you would actually get your head out of your ass and listen sometimes. You think a “ _queer_ ” can’t get anywhere in life? Newsflash, Jones, this “queer” is more successful than your entire family combined. He’s the Captain of the Providence Falconers, which, might I add, is a _very_ successful hockey team that this man,” Callie gestures towards Jack then, “has led to victory no less than four times. He’s a damn sight better than you, you failed reject of a football player who can’t let go of his high school glory days.”

Danny opens his mouth, presumably to make some comment about how that meant nothing, about how hockey was a useless sport and a waste of time -he never did have any respect for sports other than football-, when Callie cuts him off, raising her voice to drown his out.

“If that doesn’t convince you, Daniel, then maybe you’d like some cold, hard figures. Jack here has a net worth of almost seventy million dollars and an average salary of ten million dollars. Good enough for you?”

Jack flushes in his seat, partially from anger at Danny Jones, but mostly because even after seven years in the NHL and the number of compliments sports reporters and fans have paid him, he still isn’t used to having someone praising him. A small part of him is also pretty amazed that Bitty’s friend knows all these statistics about him well enough to spout off the top of her head, and, admittedly, a little embarrassed at having someone essentially show off for him. But he stays silent, content to let Bitty take his hand and rub soothingly at the join of his thumb and forefinger, content to let Bitty’s friend put this bigoted asshole in his place, even though he would have liked to acquaint this guy’s face with his fist. The only thing keeping him in check is his promise to Bitty, really.

Then Danny Jones scoffs, rolling his eyes and laughing, a contemptuous, mocking chuckle. “So little Dicky Bittle’s a kept man, then. Always said he’d never get anywhere by himself. Just a little housewife to do all the chores at home and a little slut for the hotshot hockey player to bang when he feels like it, huh?”

Jack sees red. He barely holds himself back from socking Danny Jones across his ugly mug, but he doesn’t hold himself back from shooting to his feet, his chair scraping across the ground ominously as he storms towards Danny.

“You say that one more time,” he growls, inches away from Danny’s face and holding his gaze, blue eyes stormy and cold. “I dare you.”

“Little Dicky Bittle’s a failure in life-” Danny starts, but breaks off when Jack’s glare intensifies, gulping visibly.

“Eric is more successful than you could ever be,” Jack says, voice low and threatening, but calm in a way that tells Bitty he truly is _furious_ , more angry than Bitty’s ever seen him. “He has more than five bestselling cookbooks and owns a chain of successful restaurants across the entire US which probably has more outlets than the total number of points you’ve scored in your entire washout years of playing high school football. He-”

“Jack Laurent Zimmermann!” Bitty yells as he makes his way to stand beside Jack. “You will _not_ fight my battles for me, you big Canadian lump of a hockey player.”

Jack has the decency to look sheepish, even as he steps back, putting a little distance between him and the asshat of a bully.

“Ha,” Danny scoffs. “Look at you, all cowards. Big guy like you, afraid to be a man? Should-”

Danny doesn’t see the punch coming.

The blow is strong enough to land him flat on his ass on the ground, blood trickling slowly from his nose and the corner of his mouth stained slightly red from what’s probably a cut lip.

In front of the man Jack stands, eyes wide, shocked but not unhappy as he stares down the other man. Beside Jack, Bitty stands, barely hiding a satisfied grin.

“Nice hit, sweetheart,” Jack says, lips slowly curling into a smile as Bitty shakes out his hand.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that, honey.”

And sure, they get stares everywhere they go after that, but surprisingly, they’re not kicked out of the reunion. As it is, there _are_ decent people in Bitty’s old high school class, and the organisers had seen everything, so the one who gets thrown out is, instead, Danny.

In fact, people are actually congratulating Bitty on finally standing up to Danny. Danny may have been popular back in the day, sure, but that was only among the football team and some of the other “popular” kids. The other groups, especially the smarter, more academically inclined ones, therefore dubbed nerds, were picked on by Danny and his gang almost as frequently as they’d picked on Bitty, and unsurprisingly, there was no love lost between Danny and majority of the school.

There are a few who stand by Danny’s viewpoint, though, who refuse to go anywhere near Bitty or Jack, talking bad behind their backs, or where they think the pair can’t hear them, but both men have heard worse, so it’s easy to brush off the spiteful comments, especially when they’d already come prepared to hear them.

There’s a run-in with Leah Dennis towards the end of the night, where Jack learns that the woman in the white dress who’d approached him at the drinks table was none other than the woman Coach had warned Bitty to keep an eye out for. She tries to snag Jack away from right under Bitty’s nose, purring and provocative, sultry and seductive, and Jack all but pushes her away, Bitty giggling at her affronted look when she’s effectively snubbed.

“I don’t think she’s ever been downright refused before,” Bitty laughs when she stalks away, and when he tries to mimic her look of utter outrage both of them fall into uncontrollable laughter.

But overall, even with that incident, which honestly was more amusing than annoying, Bitty considers the night a success as he stands just outside the reception area, bidding goodbye to the friends he’d come to catch up with, smiling as they offer to exchange numbers and try to keep in touch.

It’s a good night, Bitty thinks as he gets into bed, smiling as Jack pulls him close and presses a gentle kiss to the top of his head, and he drifts off to sleep with warm, comfortable arms wrapped around him and a soft smile on his cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> I hate Danny Jones with a passion ahahaha but I hope you guys liked this!
> 
> [My Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/_dreamdweller/)  
> Pop over and say hi!
> 
> Buy me a coffee! [My Ko-fi!](https://ko-fi.com/G2G7E646)  
> 


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